Issue Station
Sign In
Tools hereToolbox

claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix claude plugin update uses stale marketplace cache — reports 'already at latest version' when new commits exist [1 comments, 2 participants]

Official PRs (…)
ON THIS PAGE

Recommended Tools

×6

Utilities matched from this issue’s tags and category — try them while you read without losing context.

GitHub issue graph ai analysis

Paste a GitHub issue URL. We fetch that issue, discover linked issues from bodies/comments/timeline, collect linked pull requests, and produce a structured English report.

The report is written in English Markdown for sharing and archival.

Helpful · Quick feedback

Loading…
GitHub stats
anthropics/claude-code#46081•Fetched 2026-04-11 06:29:28
View on GitHub
Comments
1
Participants
2
Timeline
4
Reactions
0
Author
Deekshith71Deekshith71
Participants
Deekshith71Deekshith71github-actions[bot]github-actions[bot]
Timeline (top)
labeled ×3commented ×1

claude plugin update <plugin>@<marketplace> reports "already at latest version" even when new commits have been pushed to the marketplace repository. The update checker compares against a stale local git clone rather than fetching fresh from remote.

Error Message

error: unknown option '--all'

Root Cause

Claude Code caches a git clone of the marketplace at:

~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/<marketplace-name>/

The claude plugin update command compares the installed commit SHA (from ~/.claude/plugins/installed_plugins.json) against the cached clone's HEAD — but does not do a git fetch before comparing. So if the cache is stale, it always reports "already at latest version" even though remote has new commits.

Fix Action

Workaround

Manually delete the stale cache to force a fresh clone on next update:

rm -rf ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/<marketplace-name>
claude plugin update <plugin>@<marketplace>

This is not viable at org scale — engineers shouldn't need to manually clear caches for a basic update command to work.

Code Example

claude plugin marketplace add Novaworks-ai/nova-claude-plugins
   claude plugin install nova-dev-playbook@nova-plugins

---

claude plugin update nova-dev-playbook@nova-plugins

---

~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/<marketplace-name>/

---

error: unknown option '--all'

---

rm -rf ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/<marketplace-name>
claude plugin update <plugin>@<marketplace>
RAW_BUFFERClick to expand / collapse

Summary

claude plugin update <plugin>@<marketplace> reports "already at latest version" even when new commits have been pushed to the marketplace repository. The update checker compares against a stale local git clone rather than fetching fresh from remote.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Register a marketplace and install a plugin: 
    claude plugin marketplace add Novaworks-ai/nova-claude-plugins
claude plugin install nova-dev-playbook@nova-plugins
  2. New commits are pushed to the marketplace repo (GitHub remote HEAD advances)
  3. Run update: 
    claude plugin update nova-dev-playbook@nova-plugins
  4. Output: ✔ nova-dev-playbook is already at the latest version (ab7b40fdd4f2)
  5. The installed SHA ab7b40fdd4f2 is stale — the repo HEAD is now at a newer commit

Root Cause

Claude Code caches a git clone of the marketplace at:

~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/<marketplace-name>/

The claude plugin update command compares the installed commit SHA (from ~/.claude/plugins/installed_plugins.json) against the cached clone's HEAD — but does not do a git fetch before comparing. So if the cache is stale, it always reports "already at latest version" even though remote has new commits.

Additional Issue

claude plugin update --all is not implemented:

error: unknown option '--all'

This flag is referenced in third-party plugin marketplace documentation as the way to batch-update all installed plugins. If it is intentionally not supported, that should be clearly documented.

Expected Behavior

  • claude plugin update should git fetch the marketplace remote before comparing SHAs
  • OR: document a supported way to force-refresh the marketplace cache
  • --all flag should either be implemented or the error message should suggest the correct alternative

Workaround

Manually delete the stale cache to force a fresh clone on next update:

rm -rf ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/<marketplace-name>
claude plugin update <plugin>@<marketplace>

This is not viable at org scale — engineers shouldn't need to manually clear caches for a basic update command to work.

Environment

  • Claude Code CLI (latest)
  • Platform: Linux (Ubuntu 24.04)
  • Marketplace: GitHub-hosted (Novaworks-ai/nova-claude-plugins)

extent analysis

TL;DR

To fix the issue where claude plugin update reports a plugin as "already at latest version" despite new commits, perform a git fetch on the marketplace remote before comparing SHAs or manually delete the stale cache to force a fresh clone.

Guidance

  • The claude plugin update command should ideally perform a git fetch before comparing the installed commit SHA with the remote HEAD to ensure accuracy.
  • Manually deleting the stale cache at ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/<marketplace-name> and then running claude plugin update can force a fresh clone and update the plugin to the latest version.
  • Consider documenting a supported way to force-refresh the marketplace cache if the git fetch approach is not feasible.
  • For batch updates, since claude plugin update --all is not implemented, suggest an alternative approach in the error message, such as updating plugins individually.

Example

# Manually delete the stale cache and update the plugin
rm -rf ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/Novaworks-ai
claude plugin update nova-dev-playbook@nova-plugins

Notes

The provided workaround of manually deleting the cache is not scalable for large organizations and should be considered a temporary solution until a more integrated fix is implemented.

Recommendation

Apply the workaround of manually deleting the stale cache and then updating the plugin, as this provides an immediate, albeit temporary, solution to the problem. A more permanent fix would involve modifying the claude plugin update command to perform a git fetch before comparing SHAs.

Vote matrix · Quick signals

Works
Did the solution work? Tap to confirm.
Easy Fix
Was it a quick fix?
Time Saver
Did it save you time?
Blocking
Was it severely blocking?
Common Issue
Are others likely hitting this too?
Flaky / Intermittent
Is it intermittent?
Verified / Reproducible
Can you reproduce it reliably?
Loading…
#vector store#embedding generation#cache error#pipeline error#runtime error

Still need to ship something?

×6

Another batch ranked right after the header list — different links, same matching logic.

Back to top recommendations

TRENDING